The 42nd PA Senate district is open this year and the Republicans didn't put anyone into the race. Meanwhile, the Dems have only one candidate. I'm hopeful I'll run in the race in November as an Independent.

Yesterday there was a possibility that a candidate could have done a 'write in' on the open seat in the Republican primary and won -- if more than 500 votes were recorded. Well, only 358 write-ins were scored. That isn't enough to gain entry onto the November ballot for a PA Senate race.

We won't know who those votes were cast for for a while, I think. Some are sure to be Donnald Duck and Goofy. Others might be for more legit candidates.

I didn't mount any efforts to secure that write-in position myself, but I should have done so, if I was willing to burn a lot of extra cycles in those areas.

I'm happy that the slot will be empty. This sets up a 1-on-1 race for November between a Democrat and an Independent, (me).

Plenty of write in votes were scored in the Republican side of the state house race in the 22nd district. This is where Michael Diven is the sitting house member. Diven went from D to R after his last election so he could toss his hat into the ring for the state senate race that I was a part of.

Diven then didn't get onto the ballot to defend his seat as a "R" -- because a few too many dead people signed his petition.

So, Diven mounted a write-in campaign -- as did his Dem opponent, Chelsa Wagner. They went after write-ins to stay alive (in Diven's case) or to knock Diven out fully (in Wagner's case).

Well, the long and short of it is -- we still don't know exactly what happened. But, 1,144 Republicans in that district made a write-in vote.

The winner needed to get more than 300 votes to hold that position (R slot on the Nov 7, 2006 general election ballot for the PA House 22nd). So, it seems as if there will be a name on the ballot.